No Arabic abstract
In hybrid inflation, the inflaton generically has a tadpole due to gravitational effects in supergravity, which significantly changes the inflaton dynamics in high-scale supersymmetry. We point out that the tadpole can be cancelled if there is a supersymmetry breaking singlet with gravitational couplings, and in particular, the cancellation is automatic in no-scale supergravity. We consider the LARGE volume scenario as a concrete example and discuss the compatibility between the hybrid inflation and the moduli stabilization. We also point out that the dark radiation generated by the overall volume modulus decay naturally relaxes a tension between the observed spectral index and the prediction of the hybrid inflation.
No-scale supergravity provides a successful framework for Starobinsky-like inflation models. Two classes of models can be distinguished depending on the identification of the inflaton with the volume modulus, $T$ (C-models), or a matter-like field, $phi$ (WZ-models). When supersymmetry is broken, the inflationary potential may be perturbed, placing restrictions on the form and scale of the supersymmetry breaking sector. We consider both types of inflationary models in the context of high-scale supersymmetry. We further distinguish between models in which the gravitino mass is below and above the inflationary scale. We examine the mass spectra of the inflationary sector. We also consider in detail mechanisms for leptogenesis for each model when a right-handed neutrino sector, used in the seesaw mechanism to generate neutrino masses, is employed. In the case of C-models, reheating occurs via inflaton decay to two Higgs bosons. However, there is a direct decay channel to the lightest right-handed neutrino which leads to non-thermal leptogenesis. In the case of WZ-models, in order to achieve reheating, we associate the matter-like inflaton with one of the right-handed sneutrinos whose decay to the lightest right handed neutrino simultaneously reheats the Universe and generates the baryon asymmetry through leptogenesis.
We study whether the relaxion mechanism solves the Higgs hierarchy problem against a high scale inflation or a high reheating temperature. To accomplish the mechanism, we consider the scenario that the Higgs vacuum expectation value is determined after inflation. We take into account the effects of the Hubble induced mass and thermal one in the dynamics of the relaxion.
We discuss the phenomenological implications of hybrid natural inflation models in which the inflaton is a pseudo-Goldstone boson but inflation is terminated by a second scalar field. A feature of the scheme is that the scale of breaking of the Goldstone symmetry can be lower than the Planck scale and so gravitational corrections are under control. We show that, for supersymmetric models, the scale of inflation can be chosen anywhere between the Lyth upper bound and a value close to the electroweak breaking scale. Unlike previous models of low scale inflation the observed density perturbations and spectral index are readily obtained by the choice of the free parameters.
We consider the thermal production of axino dark matter in high-scale supersymmetry where all the superpartners except the axino are heavier than the maximum and reheating temperatures. In this case, the axinos are produced dominantly in pairs from the scattering of SM particles in thermal plasma in the early Universe after inflation. We find that the thermal averaged scattering cross section for the axino pair production is given by $langlesigma vrangle propto T^4$ in Kim-Shifman-Vainstein-Zakharov (KSVZ) axion model, while it does not depend on the temperature in Dine-Fischler-Srednicki-Zhitnitski (DFSZ) axion model. As a result, the axinos produced during the early matter domination is diluted by the entropy production, so the axino abundance is determined mainly by the reheating temperature, unlike the case with gravitino dark matter. We show that the axino pair production in DFSZ model opens up new parameter space for axino dark matter, due to non-decoupled Higgsino interactions at tree level.
We present a mechanism for realizing hybrid inflation using two axion fields with a purely non-perturbatively generated scalar potential. The structure of scalar potential is highly constrained by the discrete shift symmetries of the axions. We show that harmonic hybrid inflation generates observationally viable slow-roll inflation for a wide range of initial conditions. This is possible while accommodating certain UV arguments favoring constraints $flesssim M_{rm P}$ and $Deltaphi_{60}lesssim M_{rm P}$ on the axion periodicity and slow-roll field range, respectively. We discuss controlled $mathbb{Z}_2$-symmetry breaking of the adjacent axion vacua as a means of avoiding cosmological domain wall problems. Including a minimal form of $mathbb{Z}_2$-symmetry breaking into the minimally tuned setup leads to a prediction of primordial tensor modes with the tensor-to-scalar ratio in the range $10^{-4}lesssim r lesssim 0.01$, directly accessible to upcoming CMB observations. Finally, we outline several avenues towards realizing harmonic hybrid inflation in type IIB string theory.